MLB likely will have a clock for pitchers.

The timeless game will very likely feature a clock in 2018, whether players like it or not. Major League Baseball, aggressively working to improve its product’s pace and time of game, intends to introduce a pitch clock this coming season. The only question remaining is whether the dramatic alteration will be collectively bargained between the...

Time: 02:55&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Date: 19.01.2018

Major League Baseball, aggressively working to improve its product’s pace and time of game, intends to introduce a pitch clock this coming season. The only question remaining is whether the dramatic alteration will be collectively bargained between the owners and players or whether commissioner Rob Manfred will unilaterally implement that and other changes, as is his collectively bargained right.

The number of mound visits is also a virtual certainty to be policed for the first time.

While the Players Association has formally rejected MLB’s proposal, as first reported by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the PA’s executive director Tony Clark and Manfred plan to meet next week and discuss the matter some more. The rules would ideally be put in place by early February, giving teams and umpires lead time to prepare for them in exhibition games, which would serve as a dress rehearsal for the regular season. Manfred is on record, repeatedly, that he’d prefer to hash out an agreement with the players.

An industry source confirmed the contents of a memo first reported by Yahoo Sports, which details the regulations that would become law if the two sides can’t agree on moderations. It features:

A 20-second pitch clock for all pitches that would start when a pitcher has the ball on the mound and stop when the pitcher begins his windup or comes set. If the pitcher steps off the rubber, the clock would reset. Batters must be in the box five seconds after the clock starts.

A pitcher would receive a warning for his first violation, and every subsequent violation would result in a ball. The batter will be charged with a strike if he doesn’t set up in time.

Last year in MLB, the average time it took a pitcher to throw a pitch was 22 seconds.

“I guess it’s a good thing,” Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia told The Post. “We’ll see how it plays out.”
A limit of two mound visits by anyone — or even the pitcher venturing off the mound to chat with a teammate — per pitcher, per inning. The second visit will require the pitcher to leave the game. Under the old rules, such restrictions were imposed only on the manager and pitching coach and a pitcher could engage with his catcher and infielders as much as his heart desired.
A timer will monitor a 30-second limit between batters.

Manfred has made such pace-of-play changes a priority of his administration since he took over in January 2015. Nevertheless, in 2017, the average time of a nine-inning game rose to a record high 3:05:11.

Pitch clocks have been in place at the Double-A and Triple-A levels since 2015, meaning that a considerable number of major league pitchers already have worked under such a rule. Nevertheless, the players, mindful of how other recent evolutions have hit unanticipated speed bumps — most notably the expanded instant replay — are hesitant to sign onto another big adjustment that doesn’t thrill them, anyway.

The players and owners have already experienced a turbulent winter due to the ice-cold Hot Stove League, with well over 100 free agents unsigned less than a month before pitchers and catchers report, and this development figures to only hurt that crucial relationship.